Guest, Author at Milwaukee Independent

Hey, Milwaukee, you are not on vacation. Take the stay-at-home order seriously

Posted by Guest | Mar 29, 2020 |

Alderman Russell W. Stamper, II issued a public statement on March 26 that Milwaukee residents must take the coronavirus Stay-at-Home order seriously, or face the severe consequences. The deadly coronavirus (COVID-19) is spreading fast among Milwaukee’s African American population, and it has already claimed the lives of several African American men here. But those deaths – and a strict citywide Stay-at-Home order – don’t seem to be getting the attention of enough people in the community. The coronavirus pandemic is deadly serious, and all Milwaukee residents need to start getting the message immediately! In fact, Milwaukee Police have indicated...

The “Global War of Error” makes failure the new standard of success

Posted by Guest | Mar 26, 2020 |

As our infrastructure stinks, our schools fail, our country is a nightmare of inequality, and there is a self-promoting madman in the White House, it time to take pride in the rare institutional victories America has had in this century. None has been more striking than the triumphal success of the American war system. It is a bitter pill to swallow, but the U.S. military cannot win a war anymore. In this century, it has never come out on top anywhere, not once, not definitively. Everywhere it has set foot across the Greater Middle East and Africa, it seems...

Fond memories from four decades of family, friends, and fish fries at Fritz’s Pub

Posted by Guest | Mar 22, 2020 |

Fritz’s Pub opened on September 28, 1978 as a simple bar, until it was remodeled and expanded to serve food in 1981. After that, it became known for is Serbian menu – particularly the “Fritzburger” and its Friday Night Fish Fry. Operated by the Djuric family for 41 years, it closed on October 11, 2019. Dragoslav “Fritz” Djuric was Serb from Belgrade who lived in Germany, and decided to start a new life in America. He moved with his wife Katherine, a Donauschwaben – an ethnic German from Croatia, and their three children – Maria, Stephen, and Joseph to...

Frederick Douglass Day: The February 14th holiday that Hallmark makes no greeting cards to celebrate

Posted by Guest | Feb 14, 2020 |

“Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation abolished slavery. The Civil War, for the most part, dismantled the treasonous Confederacy. Yet Frederick Douglass inherently understood it would take more than words and war to grant African-Americans public register of their humanity. He had seen enough caricatures of blacks, their faces nose-deep in watermelons, or dangled above lakes as alligator bait. He despised drawings portraying his people with exaggerated features, slack-jawed expressions, or as giddy slaves. Such images, Douglass knew, reinforced white supremacy by presenting black people as simple-minded and subjugated. Douglass soon embraced a technological weapon to challenge his nation’s racism: photography....

Park East Corridor: The freeway teardown that helped put Milwaukee on the national stage this summer

Posted by Guest | Feb 13, 2020 |

When it comes to in-city freeways, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The Park East Freeway planners in Milwaukee during the 1960s were probably well-intended, but the price was destruction of neighborhoods. Residents stopped the freeway in mid-construction, one of many grassroots battles with the 20th Century highway juggernaut. The mile-long spur, scheduled for reconstruction at the turn of the century, was instead torn down in an audacious plan spearheaded by the City that won a Charter Award in 2003. The plan and code, by the Planning & Design Institute (since acquired by GRAEF), has helped...

Aaron Perry: Self-awareness is a political permission slip to “say something”

Posted by Guest | Feb 12, 2020 |

“Say something, I’m giving up on you.” Those are lyrics performed by the band, Great Big World. In reflection, it’s another example of life imitating art. 2020 is here and our own great big world is asking us to say something. So, before it’s too late, I’m going to. Self-awareness is one of life’s most beautiful and cruelest attributes. It can be a constant struggle, a seemingly invisible target. One that if you happen to hit it and be able to evaluate yourself objectively, then we often don’t like what we see and have little clue on how to...